Thanks For Asking! -- 04/01/26

Can I get an AMEN ... er, AMA?

Ask (in comments) and it shall be answered (applies to regular people pseudonymous trolls/bots are required to ask interesting questions to get answers).

Wordle 1746 Hint

Hint: Politicians live there and love it (but constantly claim they're going to drain it).

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: S

Another Recommendation for Prospective Linux Converters

It's one I knew about but hadn't noticed or thought about in a long time, because when I want to install Linux on a computer, I:

1. Look into various distributions online for the features I want;
2. Download a disk image of the distribution I choose;
3. Burn that image to a USB flash drive;
4. Boot my machine from that USB flash drive;
5. Check out the distribution and, if I like it, use the "install" option to permanently install Linux on my hard drive.

I had basically forgotten that there's a cheap (and less time-consuming) way to shorten the process:

1. Look online for a USB flash drive that already has Linux on it (they generally run $15-$25);
2. Order it and wait for it to arrive;
3. Go to step 4 in the previous sequence.

Since I haven't used the one I'm about to discuss myself I can't necessarily recommend it, but in terms of bang for buck:

I see that Amazon offers a 64 Gb USB flash drive with 17 different operating systems -- Windows 11 and 16 Linux distributions -- on it, and supposedly that flash drive boots into a menu that lets you choose whatever one you want to run direct from the USB to audition and maybe install.

It's $21 (not an affiliate link).

You can try out all of those Linux distributions right from the USB (they will probably run a little slower from USB than they would if installed to your regular hard drive) without affecting your computer's permanent setup. That way you get to know for sure you like one before you commit.

And when you do commit, you can either keep that flash drive in the ol' drawer in case you ever want to change or need to reinstall, or just format it and have an extra 64Gb flash drive for other uses. It looks like empty flash drives of that size cost nearly as much, so the whole thing seems like a no-way-to-lose proposiation.

Preemptive note to pseudonymous trolls who pretend they don't use Chinese stuff: According to Amazon's AI, "the specific country of manufacture isn't listed on the product page." My guess would be that the drive itself is Chinese; where the people who put the distros on it and resell it are located is anyone's guess.